Is Discussion Group only as good as the amount of work being done?

[Steve Lang]

  probably only "half-as-good"  given number of OT threads diluting things, but

[Ian Andrew]

"I wonder if perhaps part of the issue is a reluctance/inability to visualise ideas as opposed to reacting to what is seen. It is far easier to look at something and decide whether you like or dislike it. It is much tougher to apply your own thoughts and build images without points of reference. Based on that, it is far more likely for discussion to take place on physical encounters versus theories. It is this tendency that would limit most people on this board from actually being able to design a course yet they can form strong opinions having played or seen something."

Grant,

It's a great answer to both questions really ... and that is a problem that I never thought about. I wonder if I will need to produce some visual ideas/sketches/plans to try and get some life into one of these discussions.

Interestingly Jeff B's same comment struck a cord with me too.

[Grant Saunders]

Ian

I for one would love to see some sketches or visuals put up for discussion. Not necessarily actual holes but drawings that highlight concepts or the emphasis of ideas.

[V. Kmetz]

Hello,

What I have to say comes off the wing, and isn't highly organized, but at that risk...

A.  In the Information Age, unfortunately "information" is not as precious as it once was.  Preciousness, rarity, scarcity, discovery and so forth are so easily transacted and so quickly processed...and so easily disposed, that its charm evaporates much more quickly than any one piece of information's particular worth. At one time, this site was one of the few (if not only) where a classic course's dossier (as it were) could be examined.  Not so now. True in so many fields, not just golf

B.  In the Information age, the subject information is nearly always non- tactile, not able to be held in the hand.  I'm fairly certain few print out threads they like and review them in their chair or at a desk or while eating a meal.  It can be dismissed so quickly.  This is one of many reasons when Tom Doak was polling us for delivery methods of his updated CG, I suggested that no matter what other methods were considered, that he went with a big ultra-fabulous huge coffee table book with all the trimmings.  To me, this will last in the owners collection in near perpetuity - which is deserved considering the worth of its content

C.  Consider photography, specifically digital photography...and not just as it relates to Golf pictures.  I often think of the difference between picture taking from 19th century daguerreotypes to just 20 years ago.  And when I do, I think to myself, where are all the pictures going?...I never see any home possessing, and rarely participate in the activity of looking through, albums any more.  I think, what is happening to all these pictures people are taking?... Of families, of occasions, of memorable moments, of Niagara Falls and so forth...I recently asked my friend if the photos of my one and only godchild's (his daughter) christening luncheon could be accessed, it was such a fun day etc.  He was completely clueless...he thought they may be on a disc but he also feared they were on a hard drive he long ago dispensed with.  It was just 8 years ago.  Just today, I met with a super about any photos he might have about historical course work regarding the course for which I'm doing a club history.  Indeed he had them all, thousands in fact, but they are right there on a computer and to look at them, linger an pause on them to discuss this or that was just about impossible.  the sheer number of file folders and the hundreds of pictures within each made it nearly impossible to actually cull through them, once he found the file, which took some time given his enormous number of files.

D.  (really tangential, but about preciousness not available in the Information age) I'm an ardent fan of the Beatles and their music, and a significant thesis I hold about why their music and reputation has endured (beyond its quality and innovation) is that after Aug 29, 1966...no one saw them anymore.  Yes, certainly, the new and unprecedented music that issued from EMI studios from Strawberry Fields/Penny Lane recordings (the beginning of what became the Sgt. Pepper "sessions") until "Let it Be" was released, was the authentic vehicle of their popularity, but the cultural mystique and rabid cultural interpretation was really created by the co-fact that one could not access them anymore.  The only manner you knew they existed was the music... scant interviews, no performances...things like Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds stood for LSD, Paul is dead (which had oxygen in many items of their product) all lent them a mystical, supra-human presence because there was a vacuum of their actual, physical presence in the world.  I would go so far to say that Manson could've never deluded his followers into their heinous crimes if the Beatles were playing concerts surrounding the catalog of the White Album and were giving interviews about the music and such.  The Beatles' scarcity after they stopped touring (itself an act done because they believed their music was itself becoming disposable inside Beatlemania) lent them a cultural presence that beatified their import beyond normal realms.

As I said I'm writing this on the wing and have now drifted far from the concerns of the thread, but my main point is that besides...

1. exhausting GCA material
2. having flimsy, or OT, or trivial contributions
3. or  "Ran's perfect timing" now imperfect
4. or "industry types and raters" governing their tongues to maintain their station
5. or having slates of posts that range into personal attack

this is the dark side of the Information age on an Information age platform...we are becoming inured to the fact that no one or nothing is above being disposable as was once a wonder, can easily be turned into a tedium.  Unfortunately, this true of much in the Machine age...mankind is a destroyer, very near the Moloch of lore (and Ginsburg's poem).  who but us could conquer flight and make it stink as commercial air travel? Who else but humanity can solve the atom and blow up thousands within a few decades of its knowledge?  who but us can uncover the root of organic disease and turn into controversial health care?

One last point...

in the realm of GCA and this site, another big problem is that I know I will never see or experience or enjoy so many of the individual courses that the DG brings up.  From Royal Melbourne to the "Best Course in Your City," chances are that I'm not going to get there or even see it on TV to experience it 2-Dimensionally, so while I respect any individual's desire and amusement to post it and other's interest to look at it, I find it hard to engage meaningfully...but that's just me.

cheers

vk

[William_G]

I think the toughest thing with the site is the difficulty to do searches within the DG about any topic

searching by key words doesn't always get you want you want

I look at this DG as more like as resource with growing contributions some "live" some not so much

from a library standpoint, it can be tough to find what you are looking for

my 5 cents, thanks

[Tom_Doak]

Ian

A while ago Mike Young started a thread about the spiral of silence on GCA (http://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,56704.0.html). While its premise is different to what you are getting at, it did throw up what I found an interesting quote from Jeff Brauer:  

"Back on topic, I also find myself wondering about the level of discussion here.  We really don't discuss architecture all that much.  Just try an esoteric question and you get five responses, tops.  Talk about a Doak or a classic and it goes for months or years.  In other words, for all the potential for intelligent discussion (and there is lots of it) it in many cases, this website turns into an internet version of some travel blog, with name dropping, course counting, etc.  I will grant its hard to discuss courses you haven't played, and even harder for most to discuss architectural concepts in depth.  

In fact, architectural concepts is where I think the real silence begins on this board, even moreso than in discussing different architects.  "

I thought this to be a pretty good observation of one of the key driving points that generates a lot of the posts on this board.

Below is a reply I posted on the back of Jeffs thoughts and I find your thread bringing me back to a similar view.

"I wonder if perhaps part of the issue is a reluctance/inability to visualise ideas as opposed to reacting to what is seen. It is far easier to look at something and decide whether you like or dislike it. It is much tougher to apply your own thoughts and build images without points of reference. Based on that, it is far more likely for discussion to take place on physical encounters versus theories. It is this tendency that would limit most people on this board from actually being able to design a course yet they can form strong opinions having played or seen something."

Personally, I find it difficult to participate in the occasional "theory" thread that pops up here, because it goes against my whole belief system of golf course architecture.

In such threads, most of the posters (including some of the architects) are trying to hone in on the "right" answer to a particular problem on concept, and I just can't go there.  My belief is that the problems in golf architecture come about when it becomes too stereotyped, or when everyone agrees on the right answer.  We talk about trees, in theory, and a lot of people seem to believe there should be a black and white answer -- since there are often situations where a tree is NOT appropriate or causes problems, therefore there should NEVER be trees designed to be in play on a course.  Which is a ridiculous conclusion!

There is no one right way to bunker a course.  There is no one right way to contour greens.  [There is also no one right way to swing a club, or to grow grass.]  There are different ways, and the best way to discuss them is to do so with specific examples.  When people start discussing "theory" in lieu of specific examples that are good -- and bad -- I lose interest quickly.  I do not WANT my work to evolve to the point that every course is the same.

John Kavanaugh is also correct, that one of the differences in this site over the years is the increasing degree of political correctness.  But posters on this site are more and more timid about real criticism, and Ran is now an "insider" who does not want to offend too much.  It makes me wonder how a new edition of The Confidential Guide will go over -- not that it was greeted with love and kisses last time!

However, I do disagree with the premise of Ian's thread.  There is plenty of work worth discussing out there.  Most of it is "new" to the extent that a lot of people still haven't seen it in person.  But, it does seem that no one pays attention unless they are likely to go there, and to a lesser extent and in a nod to Mike Young, if it doesn't have cool-season grasses.  Some of the best work I've seen all year was at Mid Pines, but it hasn't gotten much attention here.  And even though Streamsong was much-discussed, as much of it was about the price of hot dogs as about the best holes on the Red or the Blue.

[Paul Gray]

Clearly I was blissfully unaware that ever worthwhile golf course on planet Earth had been profiled and discussed to death. 

[Steve Lang]

 8

"Since GolfClubAtlas.com went live from Sydney, Australia in June 1999, our goal has been to provide a freely accessed resource for the study of golf course architecture in a pleasurable, commercial free environment.  We have grown quite a bite since those early days."

So be it narrative or visuals, I think most on the DG prefer the visual on this site; how many times have I seen folks posting thank you's for pics, as many probably know, thought, or have said, "I'll never get to play xyz, but i can look at pics & via Google Earth to understand some of what's being discussed."

I am thankful for the working gca & supts & dozer operators that post, not so much for the arguers and OT posters that sometimes dominate discussion like with college football, but its no longer a treehouse, more a big tent school with a lot of stages and background labs with outreach set up.. so things will be diluted to some; but in the end, its the "unstudied" for whom the site is geared for, and add to that, if one can only speak to courses actually played its the elite access vs raters crowd type discussion where common ground on local food can rarely be reached..

If gca isn't churning with the new blood, researching the archives, etc., it isn't alive.  I can't see the DG "goodness" wholly dependent on new work or for that matter the theoretical or applied nature of a topic.  It will shrink and grow as participants have time.

[Mac Plumart]

Clearly I was blissfully unaware that ever worthwhile golf course on planet Earth had been profiled and discussed to death. 

Agree with the sentiment.  There is so much worthy of discussion that it is overwhelming.  

I don't think there is any problem with the discussion group.  All wee need is patience to let threads develop and active participants need to make the time to see some of the courses worthy of discussion... and not all of these are Top 100 courses.  Our fixation on Top 100 courses might be holding back discussion.